Undergraduate Course Descriptions Fall 2009

ENG-A 190 – Arts, Aesthetics, and Creativity (3 cr.) Instructor: Clayton Michaels
Class Number 24461 MW 5:30-6:45 P
Topic: Of (Super)Men and Myths: Writing for Comic Books
In this course, we will be taking an intensive look at the mythology of comic books. Students will spend part of the course studying comic books with the same detail with which they would study any other literary form. They will study how comic writers create and refine their own mythologies, like Jeph Loeb does in Batman: The Long Halloween or Brian K. Vaughan does in the first collected volume of his acclaimed Y: The Last Man series. Students will also explore the ways comic writers draw from and re-imagine world mythologies and folk tales in their works, like Mike Mignola’s reworking of Russian folk tales of the Baba Yaga and Koschei
the Deathless in Hellboy: Darkness Calls and Neil Gaiman’s blend of Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and myriad other mythologies in his seminal Sandman series, along with reading some of the original stories these writers are adapting in their books. Students will also spend the semester creating their own comic book, moving from creating their own character(s) and mythologies to plotting their first story arc to scripting and drawing the first issue of their books.

ENG-A 190 – Arts, Aesthetics, and Creativity (3 cr.) Instructor: Nancy Botkin
Class Number 24460 TR 10:00-11:15 A
Topic: The Magic of Image
Contemporary society is a feast for the eye through the sensory details found in poetry as well as Hollywood movies. This is a course for budding aesthetes as we look at beauty in a variety of genres: poetry, print advertising, photography, and cinema. Students will explore what makes art so alluring, and learn to appreciate these genres by developing a more critical, intellectual eye. Some written assignments as well as two photography projects: self-portrait and urban/rural landscapes. Students should have access to a digital
camera.

ENG-T 390 /30677 – will convert to:
ENG-A 399 – Arts, Aesthetics, and Creativity (3 cr.) Instructor: Kelcey Parker
TR 2:30-3:45 P
Topic: Create Your Own Book of Narrative Collage
Narrative has to do with telling stories, and collage is about juxtaposing different images and ideas. The writer Donald Barthelme said, “the point of collage is that things are stuck together to create a new reality.” In this class we will collect “things”—memories, poems, photos, objects, images—and stick them together to tell stories and create new realities. We’ll study many examples of literary and visual collage as we explore new ways to tell stories. Students in this course will write poetry and prose, take photographs, collect objects, and work throughout the semester toward a final project: you will write, design, and self-publish your own book of narrative collage.Note on content and materials: This course includes advanced reading assignments and reflective writing. Students must have regular access to a camera and should expect to pay up to $20 extra for materials and self-publishing.

ENG-E 301 – Literatures in English to 1600 (3 cr.) Instructor: Bobby Meyer-Lee
Class Number 23329 TR 11:30-12:45 P
What do a cannibalistic monster, nihilistically corrupt preacher, and cross-dressing female knight destined to save a damsel-in-distress (from having her heart torn out of her chest on a nightly basis) all have in common? They are among the treasures of what is, upon close inspection, the truly strange legacy of early British literature. In this course, we will seek to recover this strangeness from literary texts that have long been considered canonical (such as Beowulf, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, Shakespeare’s Othello, and many others), as well as engage with less well-known ones. We will pay a good deal of attention to the historical contexts of these texts (cultural, social, political, religious, linguistic), not simply to help understand them but also to cast into relief the tensions and contradictions of their times, which they both reflect and contribute to. The course will be a survey, but we will thread together our readings with recurring considerations, such as: What counts as literary? What good is literature? What is the relation of literary production to political power? How does literature both enforce and resist gender norms? Can literature save the soul, or does it put it in jeopardy?

ENG-E 304 – Literatures in English 1900-Present (3 cr.) Instructor: Chu He
Class Number 23330 MW 11:30-12:45 P
Representative study of various literatures written in English in twentieth century. Focus on themes associated with shared cultures and concerns. Selections may include writers from Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster to Chinua Achebe and Anita Desai.

ENG-G 205 – Introduction to the English Language (3 cr.) Instructor: Ann Bridger
Class Number 23336 TR 10:00-11:15 A
Class Number 23335 TR 4:00-5:15 P
Elementary phonetics, phonology, and grammatical analysis: historical and comparative linguistics: language variation; English language as considered in relation to other languages.

ENG-L 202 – Literary Interpretation (3 cr.) Instructor: Lee Kahan
Class Number 23337 MW 11:30-12:45 P
This course will introduce you to some of the core concepts and theories that inform the practice of literary interpretation. We will read works in a variety of genres, including poetry, short fiction, and drama, and discuss what formal features they share and what characteristics seem to distinguish them from one another. We will approach these works through different theories of interpretation, in order to give you a sense of the variety of approaches that critics employ to make meaning out of literary texts. Finally, the course will teach you how to do research on a literary text and how to engage with that research in your writing. Requirements will include three short papers (4 pages each) and weekly responses to the readings.

ENG-L 202 – Literary Interpretation (3 cr.) Instructor: Karen Gindele
Class Number 23338 TR 2:30-3:45 P
This course is an introduction to interpreting literature, and we’ll read both English and American poetry, drama, and fiction. Robert Scholes has identified three parts of the reading process—reading, or processing information; interpreting, or saying what a work means (and might not state outright); and criticizing, or evaluating those meanings we have found; in fact we do all three together, but we’ll concentrate on interpreting. We’ll think about how the forms of literature themselves shape meaning—how a writer might use a poem as the form in which to define an experience or perception, while he or she might use a play to present social interactions in dialogue or a novel to show us how an imagined person grows up or people fall in love. We’ll examine characters, plots, ideas, images, and the language of literature to develop skill in interpreting. Our format will be discussion, and there will probably be four papers, mainly interpretive essays but including a creative assignment; written reading responses; and we’ll work collectively on developing theories about how literature works. LAS second-level writing

ENG-L 305 – Chaucer (3 cr.) Instructor: Bobby Meyer-Lee
Class Number 27247 TR 2:30-3:45 P
This course will be an in-depth study of the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer’s final literary effort—one of the most various, capacious, elusive, intelligent, funny, and brooding works of literature in any language in any period of history. We will pay close attention to the fourteenth-century text and historical context in light of twenty-first century interpretative concerns and theories. Issues that we may discuss include whether it’s possible for women to have agency in a patriarchal world (the Wife of Bath’s Tale), whether or not literature has any purpose (the Nun’s Priest’s Tale), whether or not life has any purpose (the Knight’s Tale), and what happens when you discover that you cannot be saved (the Pardoner’s Tale). Simple, funny stuff like that!

ENG-L 352 – American Literature 1865-1914 (3 cr.) Instructor: Jake Mattox
Class Number 30355 TR 1:00-2:15 P
The period leading up to and following the U.S. Civil War saw a tense culture combining deep optimism and a crisis of confidence over such issues as national unity, imperialism and empire, market capitalism, the legacies of conquest, and race relations. It also saw an incredible wealth of literary production. In this course, we will consider how different authors, using a variety of genres—such as naturalism, historical romance, humor/satire, and the fictional autobiography—engaged with the debates surrounding these important issues. Authors studied will likely include Mark Twain, Harriet Wilson, Herman Melville, Frank Norris, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charles Chesnutt.

ENG-L 369 – Studies in British & American Authors (3 cr.) Instructor: Karen Gindele
Class Number 27249 MW 1:00-2:15 P
Topic: Headstrong Women and Political Men
In this course we will read three Victorian novels figuring women who are smart and try to do what they want in relation to men who have political and/or legal careers and thus control the institutions that, among other things, try to manage women. The central novels will be Bleak House by Charles Dickens, Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope, and Middlemarch by George Eliot (a woman). We’ll also read contextual social materials such as various writers, male and female, on “The Woman Question,” including excerpts from John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women, and current literary theory and criticism. The class will operate by discussion, and students will gain experience in shaping critical arguments about literature. There will probably be two medium and one longer paper including students’ independent research.

ENG-L 370 – Recent Black American Writers (3 cr.) Instructor: Eileen Bender
Class Number 27250 MW 2:30-3:45 P
(crosslisted with WOST-W 302/28898)
Topic: Realists, ‘Womanists’: African American Women’s Writing
African American women writers speak with many voices, offering a kaleidoscopic vision of the American Black experience. Alice Walker has coined a special adjective to describe this powerful and complex literary movement, in which she herself has played a significant role: “womanst.” Clearly, other authors, both “ancestors” and contemporaries, have also illuminated political, cultural, and ideological realities that have shaped all of our lives as Americans. In this course, we will sample and discuss the amazing profusion of work by some of America’s most gifted African American writers in a range of genres -- novels, short stories, poetry, and drama -- to chart the boundaries of this challenging literary phenomenon. Students will write and share short papers and participate in class “teaching groups.” There will be a midterm and a final exercise.

ENG-L 390 – Children’s Literature (3 cr.) Instructor: Mary Anna Dimitrakopoulos
Class Number 23339 MW 10:00-11:15 A
Historical and modern children’s books and selections from books; designed to assist future teachers, parents, librarians, or others in selecting the best in children’s literature.

ENG-T 190 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions (3 cr.) Instructor: Shawn Nichols-Boyle
Class Number 24230 MW 11:30-12:45 P
Class Number 30592 TR 4:00-5:15 P
Topic: Everybody’s Irish: Uncovering Plastic Paddys and “Real” Irishmen
Whatever happened to the Ireland of thatch cottages, fairies, giants, wakes, and dances? “Modern” Irishmen and women have been asking this question as far back as the nineteenth century when the Irish countryside was being transformed by the introduction of the English language and culture, and most importantly, the setting down of stories told around the fireside into print. This course will explore how some of the first Irish authors in English were able to capture the tall tales and voices of the last of the traditional Irish storytellers in writing. Most of our current views of the Irish come from these early stories, but how accurate is the stereotype of the poor, drunk, short-tempered, yet lovable Paddy? We will read literature and historical accounts, as well as watch selections from films such as The Quiet Man and Darby O’Gill and the Little People, to discover the complex image of the Irishman in print and how it has been manipulated and reproduced over time to create the “real” Irish.

ENG-T 190 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions (3 cr.) Instructor: Lee Kahan
Class Number 24387 TR 1:00-2:15 P
Topic: Castaways
The story of an individual stranded on a tropical island, forced to rely for survival on nothing but the fruits of the earth and his or her own ingenuity, has become a foundational myth of modern society. It has been rewritten countless times over the last 300 years, from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) to the recent Tom Hanks film Castaway (2000) to hit TV shows like Survivor and Lost. Why do we remain so fascinated with the figure of the castaway? What does it tell us about the modern individual and his or her relationship to society? What do the changes in this story, as it has been recast for audiences of different time periods, tell us about the evolution of that society (or about the way we view it)? These are the kinds of questions that we will attempt to answer as we read selections from three centuries of castaway tales.

ENG-T 190 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions (3 cr.) Instructor: Jackie Collins
Class Number 24503 TR 2:30-3:45 P Elkhart
Topic: Stories of the Dysfunctional Family
The course focuses on the repetitive pattern of dysfunction in family groups from the ancient Greeks to modern writers. The class will analyze the causes of socially dysfunctional actions and the effects on family members and the surrounding society. We’ll study dysfunctional characters in literary works and film with the help of some psychological texts. We will examine the difficulty of breaking out of dysfunction and investigate ethical consequences of characters’ actions. How are the destructive consequences of dysfunctional acts treated by the authors in this course? How does modern society view such acts? Can dysfunctional acts be explained away by fate or birth? Where does responsibility reside?

ENG-T 191– World Literary and Intellectual Traditions I (3 cr.) Instructor: Bobby Meyer-Lee
Class Number 24649 TR 10:00-11:15 A
For undergrad Education students.
Topic: Heroes in Ancient and Medieval World Literature
Three boys without a father: one finds a sword in a stone, one is given a light saber, and one is chosen by a wand. All become heroes. The significance of these and many other similarities among such tales of heroes—as well as of their important differences—is the topic of this course. The focus, in particular, will be on heroic legends from the ancient and medieval eras, ranging across time and space from 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia (Gilgamesh), to 2500 years ago in India (the life of the Buddha), to 500 years ago in England (Sir Thomas Malory’s account of King Arthur). Throughout, we will reflect on apparent continuities among these stories as well as the vast differences in culture that they carry, and we will think about the cultural functions of heroic legends in general. And, yes, we will also talk about how the Star Wars and Harry Potter sagas fit into the long tradition of heroic literature.

ENG-T 192 – World Literary and Intellectual Traditions II (3 cr.) Instructor: Kyoko Takanashi
Class Number 24648 MW 1:00-2:15 P
For undergrad Education students.
Topic: Literary Hauntings
In this course, we will read literary works from the seventeenth century to the present, focusing on the theme of “Literary Hauntings.” For the first half of the semester, we will read various ghost stories from around the globe and discuss the cultural characteristics of different ghosts, their attachment to specific locales, and what they mean to their respective cultural communities. For the second half of the semester, we will turn our attention to one of the most famous ghosts in the history of English literature – in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We will not only discuss the significance of Hamlet’s ghost, but also look at some literary and film adaptations to explore how Shakespeare’s work “haunts” literary representations at different historical moments.

ENG-T 390 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions II (3 cr.) Instructor: Kate Wolford
Class Number 27255 TR 10:00-11:15 A
Topic: The Trouble with Beauty in Fairy Tales
Can our unrealistic ideas about beauty be laid at the dainty feet of fairy tales? In fairy tales "beauty" is often equated with good character and "ugliness" with evil. And influential social roles in fairy tales are hardly confined to pretty princesses. Witches, Princes Charming, and Trickster heroes are also stock characters in fairy tales and have their own complicated impact on culture. This course will explore the ethical implications of the content, art, and history of fairy tales from several cultures and traditions. By exploring tales such as “The Little Mermaid” through the primary text by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrations by 19th-century artists like Edmund Dulac, and the powerfully popular Disney movie of the late 20th century, we’ll delve into the impact such tales have on society. Are they worth telling? Are they good for children? What ethical responsibilities do illustrators, fairy tale authors, and interpreters have in transmitting fairy tales? Using approaches from the disciplines of art history, literary criticism, and social history, we’ll try to find the answers. This course will focus on improving student writing and research skills. Three papers, an annotated bibliography and regular online entries on a class-focused blog will be required.

ENG-T 390 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions II (3 cr.) Instructor: Karen Gindele
Class Number 27253 MW 4:00-5:15 P
Topic: Love and Work in Nineteenth-Century Novels
This course will examine the conditions and relationships of love and work in novels of nineteenth-century England, Russia, and probably France or Italy. George Eliot’s Middlemarch and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina will form the center of the course. We will read some works critiquing the system of labor organized by class and gender divisions, and concurrent political theory such as Marx’s Communist Manifesto; we’ll also read materials about love and domestic life involving the increasing social possibility (and occasional fact) at least for the middle class, of being able to choose a spouse and/or profession. This last choice applied mainly to men, of course, but we’ll look at the visible and invisible work women were allowed and required to do, especially in the domestic sphere. There will probably be three formal analytical papers of medium length, and students will conduct independent research. The class will operate primarily by discussion.

ENG-T 390 – Literary and Intellectual Traditions II (3 cr.) Instructor: Lee Kahan
Class Number 27254 TR 2:30-3:45 P
Topic: The Commercial Revolution and the Rise of the Novel
In the early eighteenth-century, the novelist Daniel Defoe proclaimed that England had become “a nation of shopkeepers.” While Defoe might have been a bit premature, it was certainly the case that over the course of the century, England transitioned from an agricultural to a commercial economy. Defoe meant his remark as a compliment, but others were not so sure that this change was a positive one, given how it had unsettled many of the assumptions upon which personal identity was based. Money, for example, was quickly replacing birth as the basis for power and prestige: “I can buy a gentleman, therefore I am a gentleman,” as one shopkeeper of the time put it. While this produced a new sense of social equality (an evil more than a good for many), it also suggested that one’s identity was based on what one owned rather than on any inherent attributes (soul, personality, etc.). A new luxury market promoted this mentality by offering a wider array of goods than ever before and invented new techniques, such as advertisements and window displays, to make these goods appealing. The result was a new type of individual—“the consumer”—who seemed to lack any fixed identity, or indeed any substance at all.

One of the new luxury items that consumers purchased and used to define themselves was the novel—a form of literature that catered to a new middle-class audience by focusing on workaday life and making everyday people the heroes of its plots. In doing so, the novel served as a device for analyzing the new commercial world and its effects on society. It also helped to shape, and was shaped by, attitudes towards this world. In this class, we will examine how England responded to the crisis of identity wrought by the commercial revolution and how the literature of the time attempted to offer solutions to this crisis, helping to naturalize the modern individual of capitalism in the process. Novels will include: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe; Samuel Richardson, Pamela; Tobias Smollett, Humphrey Clinker; Henry McKenzie, The Man of Feeling; and Frances Burney, Evelina. We will frame our discussions of the novels through selections from the sociologists Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, as well as period sources by the philosophers John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith. The grade will be based on weekly responses, two short papers (3-4 pages), a research paper (8+ pages), and a final exam.

ENG-W 031 - Pre-Composition (3 cr.) S/F graded
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times
This course prepares students for college writing at the W130 level by focusing on fundamental writing skills in an academic context; in particular, summary, analysis, and synthesis. We will study writing as an interpretive act, organization as the logical progression of ideas, and grammar as the effective conveyance of meaning. Students will learn revision as the thoughtful development of ideas and editing as the direct and accurate presentation of those ideas.

ENG-W 130 - Principles of Composition (3 cr.)
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times
In this course, students should become more confident as interpreters of college-level reading and will become well-prepared for W131. Students will also gain a wider range of tools for interpreting academic texts and for developing their ideas in relation to those texts. We will focus on using summary, analysis, and synthesis to produce thoughtful, organized, theory-driven essays, and will continue to work on organizational strategies and effective language use within that context.

ENG-W 131 - Elementary Composition (3 cr.)
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times
In this course, students will expand their range of strategies for interpreting academic texts, for developing their ideas in relation to those texts, and for expressing those ideas in thoughtful, organized, theory-driven essays, while continuing to work on the effective organization and presentation of those ideas. W131 addresses these goals at a more challenging level than W130 and includes an introduction to college-level research writing.

ENG-W 203 - Creative Writing (3 cr.) Instructor: David Dodd Lee
Class Number 23414 MW 4:00-5:15 P
Class Number 23413 TR 1:00-2:15 P
This class will introduce students to the process and techniques of creative writing, including brainstorming, imitation, and collage techniques in poetry. Students will write both poetry and fiction--starting with the lyric poem, moving along to the prose poem, and ending with the short story. Class readings will expose students to various writing styles and provide examples of successful writing by contemporary poets and fiction writers. Class time will be spent discussing the writer's craft, assigned readings, and student writing.

ENG-W 231 - Professional Writing Skills (3 cr.)
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times.
In this course we study a number of important forms of and approaches to professional writing, using a revision and workshop model. We read examples of professional writing and consider the ways the authors address problems of organization, style, and audience. Class members compose frequently and learn how to evaluate and make improvements to their own drafts by giving detailed feedback for the writing of other class members. Class members are responsible for reading and rereading, for composing informal responses to texts and to class discussions, for drafting and revising documents, and for responding to the spoken and written words of other class members. By the end of the semester, you should be more confident as a writer in professional or business situations. You should have a wider range of tools for shaping a document to meet the particular needs of an audience, persuasively, in a style and form of your own choosing. You will also develop research skills appropriate for professional or business contexts over a series of assignments for a substantial portion of the semester.

ENG-W 232 – Intro to Business Writing (3 cr.)
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times.
Designed for students pursuing business careers. Practice in clarity, correctness, organization, and audience adaptation in business letters, interoffice memos, and informal and formal reports. Some emphasis on business research methods, research design, collaborative writing, and oral communication.

ENG-W 250 – Writing in Context (3 cr.) Instructor: Joshua Rubin
Class Number 23420 TR 4:00-5:15
Topic: Queer Chic
Popular Culture and the Queer American. This course will examine popular film, television, and literary portrayals of homosexuality, locating them within the discipline of Queer Studies, and interpreting them in relationship to American cultural mythologies about sexuality.

ENG-W 270 – Argumentative Writing (3 cr)
See Schedule of Classes on OneStart (onestart.iu.edu) for days and times.
For Education students
Offers instruction and practice in writing argumentative essays about complicated and controversial issues. The course focuses on strategies for identifying issues, assessing claims, locating evidence, deciding on a position, and writing papers with clear assertions and convincing arguments.

ENG-W 303 – Writing Poetry (3 cr.) Instructor: David Dodd Lee
Class Number 30683 TR 4:00-5:15 P
This class will be a survey course of contemporary poetry, as well as a workshop. We will examine various narrative structures in an attempt to define the evolution of free verse and how various writers use language in order to subvert solipsism and/or as a sort of bludgeon against cultural sentimentality. We will also look at how various writers transcend the self by moving beyond simple reflections of reality without resorting to fixed forms or received ideas. Further, we will investigate through texts and your own writing how to allow the subconscious to flood the page and how to match your ideas and emotions to an appropriate narrative (or non-narrative) form. Students will write and revise poems of their own (app. 9 for undergrads, 11 for grad students) in an effort to create a thread of coherence that runs through not only single pieces but a small body of work. Students will also keep a reader response journal, write experimental poems based on in-class exercises, and write one (grad students two) informal two page paper on one of our assigned poets (there will be several texts).

ENG-W 315 – Writing for the Web (3 cr.) Instructor: Shawn Nichols-Boyle
Class Number 24091 TR 6:00-7:15 P
Introduces students to new forms of writing (beyond word processing and desktop publishing) made possible by computers-hypertext, electronic mail, and computer conferencing - and explores what impact these new forms have on literacy skills for writers and readers of such computer-delivered texts.

ENG-W 350 – Advanced Expository Writing (3 cr.) Instructor: Rebecca Brittenham
Class Number 23422 MW 1:00-2:15 P
From book reviews to Blogs, from self-discovery to savage critique, the essay continues to be the most flexible, variable, and fun prose form available to writers. In this class you will be studying some of the great essays of the past and present, taking them apart to see how they work, and adapting some of the techniques you admire into your own essay writing. You will have the opportunity to expand your repertoire as an essayist by trying out various approaches to the essay form--the list, the observational essay, the rant–and by studying conventions of voice, audience, and argument that animate the academic essay. You will also have the opportunity to practice some research techniques and to learn from other writers in a workshop atmosphere.

Comparative Literature

CMLT –C 190 – An Introduction to Film (3 cr.) Instructor: Andrew DeSelm
Class Number 24502 MW 10:00-11:15 A
Class Number 31215 MW 1:00-2:15 P
This class examines the basic nature of film language through a close analysis of specific films. We will cover film form, film history, film theory, and film genres. This course aims to introduce students to fundamental concepts in film studies and prepare them for more focused courses in film history, aesthetics, and theory.

CMLT –C 310 – Film Adaptations (3 cr.) Instructor: Elaine Roth
Class Number 28805 TR 4:00-5:15 P
The success of films such as Twilight (2008), Elegy (2008), and Watchmen (2009), demonstrates that audiences enjoy watching film adaptations of literature. Books and movies use entirely different formats, yet most Hollywood films are adaptations of literature. What is the difference between reading and viewing? How does a narrative change in the adaptation process, and what are the implications of those changes? This class will consider these questions and other topics raised by film adaptations. We will examine the relationship between the literary and the cinematic version of several texts and consider the strategies, agendas and pleasures of the adaptation process. Texts may include The Talented Mr. Ripley, Brokeback Mountain, and The Road.